A twice-weekly syndicated newspaper column on California public affairs.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

ONE GRATUITOUS SENTENCE AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2013, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“ONE GRATUITOUS SENTENCE AND THE PUBLIC
HEALTH?”

Imagine a California where polio
becomes a threat to children’s health again, as it was before the 1950s, when
first the Salk vaccine and later the even more effective Sabin formula threw
this dreaded and crippling disease into dormancy.

Or
a California where dozens of kids die every year from pertussis, better known
as whooping cough for the gasping “whoop” afflicted children often make after
coughing. And more.

There’s
a possibility – slim, but still there – that a single sentence in one of Gov.
Jerry Brown’s signing messages on an unpublicized 2012 law could open these
kinds of Pandora’s boxes, at least for children of parents who want to avoid
vaccinating them.

The law, passed as Assembly Bill 2109,
was intended to do the reverse. It requires documentation when the value of
vaccinations to children and the community at large is explained to parents or
guardians not planning to vaccinate their kids. It reiterates previous rules
requiring persons opting out due to religious belief to get a signed statement
from a doctor, nurse or physician’s assistant saying they’ve been told the
benefits of vaccination. And it says parents must file one written statement of
their beliefs and another attesting to receipt of information about
vaccination.

The idea was to improve vaccination
rates and benefits by making doubly sure everyone is fully informed. But Brown
stuck one wild-card sentence into his signing message, where no signing message
was required.

“I will direct the Department (of
Public Health) to allow for a separate religious exemption on the form,” he
said, adding that “in this way, people whose religious beliefs preclude
vaccinations will not be required to seek a health practitioner’s signature.”

Brown,
thus, ordered a weaker approach than mandated by the law he had just signed.
The Department of Public Health issued a new exemption form embodying this in
October.

From
now on, any parent or guardian who doesn’t feel like getting his or her child
vaccinated for polio, diphtheria, measles, rubella, mumps or pertussis has an
easy out. A box on the new form even lets parents claim their religion
precludes seeking medical advice.

The
vaccinations are normally required to register kids in various levels of public
school, with pertussis shots before seventh grade coming at the most advanced
age on the list.

It’s
a lot easier to check off a box than it would be to follow even the old rules,
which the 2012 law aimed to beef up.

That box on the new form stunned some
health advocates, since it is neither mentioned nor authorized by law or
regulation. It led to speculation about why Brown ordered that “separate
religious exemption” on the new form.

Diana Dooley, state Health and Human
Services secretary, asserted the governor’s order “does not countermand the
law.” She refused to explain how that can be, when the law provides for no easy
out like Brown ordered.

Added another Brown spokesman, “The
governor believes that vaccinations are profoundly important and a major public
health benefit. This law is intended to strongly encourage people to take full
advantage of vaccinations. We've also taken into account fundamental First
Amendment religious freedoms through an extremely narrow exemption.”

It all spurs fear in public health
advocates mindful of the fact that California has seen thousands of whooping
cough cases over the last few years, more than 9,000 in 2010 alone. In that
year, 10 children died from the disease, but strong vaccination drives in the
next two years reduced later tolls. Who knows what could happen with the easy
exemption Brown calls “narrow?”

What’s
known is that a Johns Hopkins University study found the heaviest
concentrations of 2010 pertussis cases came where the most religious exemptions
were filed.
(http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/09/24/peds.2013-0878.abstract)

Which means that barriers to parents
and guardians opting their charges out strictly for convenience really do aid
public health.

It will be some time before anyone can
assess the effects of the new form and its dicey box, but one thing for sure:
The state will now do less than it has for decades to suppress pernicious
diseases that formerly caused huge health problems.

-30- Email
Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough:
The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch
It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias
columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

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About Me

Thomas Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column, appearing twice weekly in 88 newspapers around California, with circulation over 2.2 million.
He has won numerous awards from organizations like the National Headliners Club, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Los Angeles Press Club, and the California Taxpayers Association. He has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize in distinguished commentary.
Elias is the author of two books, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It" (now in its third edition; also published in Japanese and recently optioned for a television movie) and "The Simpson Trial in Black and White," co-authored with the late Dennis Schatzman.